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Here is something they must be worried about in the early growth of Google+: There are remarkably few women in the service.

An early check of some of the people followed by a half-dozen people I’m connected to shows, in general, a 90:10 ratio of men to women. Shout out to Internet researcher danah boyd, with a roughly 75:25 male/female ratio – you were the only one above 10% (I had six women out of 50 people, about the average on my check – which included women as well as men.)

Why is the sex ratio a big deal? Sociologists and linguists will tell you, the kind of things people talk about (and, I’ll wager, share) are inflected by their gender. And managers will aver, the early stages of any organization affect its ultimate character. Google+ should be seeking an even balance, to maximize the range of uses and behaviors people exhibit.

Admittedly, this is a very unscientific sample -- I haven't run through thousands of samples, and the profiles I looked at had male and female names and photos, but that doesn't mean they are really those genders.

But it makes even more sense. The gender skew isn’t too surprising, considering how Google+ is rolling out. Google launched it to 43 languages – an impressive geographical and linguistic reach – but it did so through Google people, who are mostly young male software engineers. They know people like themselves, and have invited them in. And, stop the presses: Guys who write a lot of code tend to know more guys than women.

This isn’t to say that Google+ will be a frat house, full of bawdy jokes and cigar worship. But it could skew to certain commonly-exhibited interests – tech, work, blunt communication – at the expense of others – family, broader age groups, deliberative communication. [And yes, I know I’m dealing here in stereotypes – but there’s a reason clichés become currency. They are borne of reality. Just ask Deborah Tannen, that expert on gender and communications styles.]

Part of Facebook’s enduring popularity may be due to its roots as an Ivy League hookup service, which slowly percolated into the broader population – nice aspirational demographic, nice gender balance. The hookup thing might have been a problem, but only if it had led to Harvard people having a lot more raunchy sex, instead of just thinking about it – the latter is right up the alley of popular entertainment.

It's not the kind of thing you see on Yahoo, LinkedIn, or your Microsoft Outlook email, either - other increasingly social businesses Google+ might target. And it matters a lot, as Google starts making assumptions about how people use the service - or even how they learn to use the service.

On Google+, people are posting tips about what to do with it, instructions for others. I've also seen women tell each other that they don't know how to use Google+ yet, and seek help from others, who say they also feel a little alienated -- problem is, I saw it on Facebook.

It's kind of like the "men won't ask directions" problem. It could make Google+ hard for the newbies -- not just women, but non-tech types and older people -- the balanced demographic you need to get hundreds of millions of followers.

I can almost hear the conversation inside the Google+ war room: “More women! We need old people! Get me some photos of family reunions!”